BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China.

LIFE SCIENCES ADVANCES

The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) on Monday released the country's 10 most significant advances in the field of life sciences in 2021.

Among the other breakthroughs on the list, a study on synthesizing starch from carbon dioxide stood out.

Other key advances include studies in cross-species infection and transmission of coronavirus, adjuvant therapy in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma, vertebrate water-to-land evolutionary pathway, route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice, climate-driven flyway changes and memory-based long-distance migration, and morphological diversity of single neurons in molecularly defined cell types.

DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS

Chinese paleontologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of a batch of dinosaur footprints in south China's Guangdong Province. The fossil footprints were accidentally found by a junior high school student near a construction site in Huaiji County, Zhaoqing City, Guangdong, in July 2021.

A research team led by the China University of Geosciences came to Huaiji to study the exposed dinosaur footprints and their rock strata and recorded the situation through unmanned aerial vehicles and stereo scanning.

They discovered a total of seven theropod footprints, including two isolated footprints and one well-preserved track, according to a study published in the journal Historical Biology.

WORLD OCEAN HEAT

The year 2021 was the hottest for the world's oceans in recorded human history, according to a new study led by an international team of scientists who track the data.

Published Tuesday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, the study was conducted by 23 researchers from 14 institutes in China, the United States and Italy.

They found that the upper 2,000 meters in all oceans last year absorbed a greater amount of heat than the previous record set just the year before, equal to 145 times world electricity generation in 2020.